bradywwefandomcom-20200214-history
Dolph Ziggler
In OVW, he became a part of The Spirit Squad (under the name "Nicky"), who were eventually called up to Raw. On January 23, 2006, they had their television debut, appearing on Raw and helping Jonathan Coachman win a Royal Rumble qualifying match against Jerry "The King" Lawler by performing cheers for the Coach and distracting Lawler. They later became a part of the on-going feud between WWE chairman Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels. The heel McMahon brought in the Squad to attack Michaels on numerous occasions, including placing them in multiple handicap matches. They also wrestled in the tag team division, and on April 3, on Raw, won the World Tag Team Championship when Kenny and Mikey, with outside help from the other three Squad members, defeated Kane and The Big Show.1011 After winning the titles The Spirit Squad defended the titles under the Freebird Rule.Three weeks later, McMahon signed another Handicap match, with the Spirit Squad facing Michaels. The Spirit Squad instead attacked Michaels before the match had started, and Triple H came out to help them, Kenny disrespected him, leading to Triple H helping Shawn Michaels instead.12 This led to Triple H and Michaels reforming D-Generation X (DX) and they began a feud with the Spirit Squad.1314 DX played various sophomoric jokes on the Squad and the McMahons, as well as defeating the Spirit Squad in handicap tag matches at Vengeance and a clean sweep in an elimination handicap match at Saturday Night's Main Event.14151617At the same time as their feud with DX and their alignment with McMahon, the team also wrestled other teams in Raw's tag division over their World Tag Team Title, successfully defending the championship against the teams of Jim Duggan and Eugene, Charlie Haas and Viscera, and Snitsky and Val Venis,15 They then entered a lengthy feud with The Highlanders, whom they eventually defeated to retain the titles at Unforgiven.1819The Squad as a whole later began a losing streak with separate members losing singles matches to Ric Flair on consecutive episodes of Raw.2021 After two consecutive losses to the debuting Cryme Tyme, Kenny attacked Mikey and announced that he was going to defeat Flair, since no other member was able to do it; he succeeded, despite Flair attempting to even the odds by bringing other WWE Legends,Dusty Rhodes, Sgt. Slaughter, and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, to the ring with him.2223 It was then decided that Flair and one of the legends would wrestle the Squad at Cyber Sunday for the Tag Team Championship.23 The fans chose Piper, and he and Flair defeated Kenny and Mikey to win the title.24The group was "killed off" on the November 27 Raw after they were defeated in a 5 on 3 match by DX and Flair. Then, in a backstage segment that night, DX put all the members into a crate stamped "OVW, Louisville, Kentucky".25 On September 15, 2008, Nemeth re-debuted on Raw, introducing himself in a backstage segment, with a new image, under the name "Dolph Ziggler". On October 10, 2008, Nemeth was suspended for 30 days for his first violation of WWE's Wellness Program policy. He returned to Raw on November 17 in a backstage segment with Rey Mysterio and Shawn Michaels. In his first match on Raw under the Ziggler name, he lost to Batista, getting a deal of offense in the form of high impact moves, on the December 1 episode. The next week he got his first victory as Dolph Ziggler, by countout, against R-Truth. The following week on Raw, he picked up his first televised pinfall victory as Ziggler, when he beat Charlie Haas. On April 15, 2009, Nemeth was drafted to the SmackDown brand as part of the 2009 Supplemental Draft. He made his debut on the April 17 episode of SmackDown, defeating the United States Champion, Montel Vontavious Porter (MVP) in a non-title match, and, as a result, the following week he demanded a match for the championship. On the May 1 episode of SmackDown, however, he failed to win the championship, after he was pinned by MVP. Ziggler started a rivalry with The Great Khali, losing by disqualification after attacking him with a steel chair. Over the next few weeks, however, Ziggler defeated Khali by countout and disqualification after making it look like Khali had struck him with a steel chair. At The Bash, Ziggler defeated Khali by pinfall, after Kane returned and attacked Khali. Ziggler then entered an on-screen relationship with Diva Maria, while starting a scripted rivalry with Intercontinental Champion Rey Mysterio, who defeated Ziggler at the Night of Champions and SummerSlam pay-per-views to retain the championship. He later has just been on WWE Superstars, sometimes winning and losing.